Events & Promotions
|
|
GMAT Club Daily Prep
Thank you for using the timer - this advanced tool can estimate your performance and suggest more practice questions. We have subscribed you to Daily Prep Questions via email.
Customized
for You
Track
Your Progress
Practice
Pays
Not interested in getting valuable practice questions and articles delivered to your email? No problem, unsubscribe here.
Nov 2007:30 AM PST
-08:30 AM PST
Learn what truly sets the UC Riverside MBA apart and how it helps in your professional growth
31 May 2020, 18:43
Kudos
Bookmarks
The following appeared as part of an article on government funding of environmental regulatory agencies:
“When scientists finally learn how to create large amounts of copper from other chemical elements, the regulation of copper mining will become unnecessary. For one thing, since the amount of potentially available copper will no longer be limited by the quantity of actual copper deposits, the problem of over-mining will quickly be eliminated altogether. For another, manufacturers will not need to use synthetic copper substitutes, the production of which creates pollutants. Thus, since two problems will be settled—over-mining and pollution—it makes good sense to reduce funding for mining regulation and either save the money or reallocate it where it is needed more.”
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.
===================
The argument claims that when scientists learn how to create large amount of copper from other chemical elements, the regulation of copper mining will become unnecessary and since two problems previously addressed by the regulations—over-mining and pollution— would no longer exist thus the funding for the mining regulations can be reduced. Stated in this way, the argument fails to mention several key factors on the basis of which it could be evaluated and reveals examples of leap of faith, poor reasoning and ill-defined terminology. The conclusion of the argument relies on several assumptions for which there is no clear evidence. Hence, the argument is weak, unconvincing and has several flaws.
First, the argument readily assumes that finding a way to create large amounts of copper from other chemicals inherently means that it’s a feasible process in practice. This statement is a stretch and not substantiated in any way. In fact, finding the process to perform the mentioned chemical reaction to create large quantities of copper from secondary chemical elements doesn’t guarantee that we will have adequate amount of the source chemical in nature to create the required amount of copper. Moreover, even if we have the adequate amount of it we may not be able to extract that amount or we may not have the technological tools to do so in a way that is financially reasonable. For example, let’s just consider a situation that we might find a way to create copper in large quantities from two other chemical elements such as iron and lead; are we going to have ample amount of both chemical elements in the nature to create the copper and how much would that cost? Lastly, is that reasonable to deprive other industries that crucially need these two elements to feed the copper industry? Furthermore, the issue of over-mining definitely will not be resolved if extracting the source chemical element itself heavily depends on mining. The argument could be much clearer if it explicitly stated that how finding new technics to create copper would solve the issue of over-mining.
Second, the argument claims that finding such a technic will eliminate the need for synthetic copper and thus the pollution it creates. Again, this is a very weak and unsupported claim as the argument doesn’t demonstrate any correlation between finding this new way and the decline of pollution. To illustrate we do not know that the new technic of mass creation of the copper will not create the same or more amount of environmental pollution than the production of synthetic copper. Maybe it’s even more pollutant and thus the new way wouldn’t really help with that issue. In other hands, the argument doesn’t mention that what are the intakes of those synthetic coppers, it’s possible that some industries that do not need high grades of copper still prefer to use the synthetic copper that is probably cheaper to produce and as a result the newly created copper will hardly replace the synthetic copper in the market. If the argument had provided evidence that the new copper production mechanism will eliminate the need for synthetic copper, then it would have been much more convincing.
Finally, the argument is not providing evidence that the regulation was created in the first place to only address the issue of over-mining and pollution. It’s very likely that the regulation was created to oversee a much wider variety of issues than only those two and while they are addressed there will be still need for the regulation to continue existence. So without convincing answers to these questions, one is left with the impression that the claim is more of a wishful thinking rather than substantive evidence.
In conclusion, the argument is flawed for the above-mentioned reasons and is therefore unconvincing. It could be considerably strengthened if the author clearly mentioned all the relevant facts. In order to assess the merits of a certain situation, it is essential to have full knowledge of all contributing factors without them the argument remains open to debate.
“When scientists finally learn how to create large amounts of copper from other chemical elements, the regulation of copper mining will become unnecessary. For one thing, since the amount of potentially available copper will no longer be limited by the quantity of actual copper deposits, the problem of over-mining will quickly be eliminated altogether. For another, manufacturers will not need to use synthetic copper substitutes, the production of which creates pollutants. Thus, since two problems will be settled—over-mining and pollution—it makes good sense to reduce funding for mining regulation and either save the money or reallocate it where it is needed more.”
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.
===================
The argument claims that when scientists learn how to create large amount of copper from other chemical elements, the regulation of copper mining will become unnecessary and since two problems previously addressed by the regulations—over-mining and pollution— would no longer exist thus the funding for the mining regulations can be reduced. Stated in this way, the argument fails to mention several key factors on the basis of which it could be evaluated and reveals examples of leap of faith, poor reasoning and ill-defined terminology. The conclusion of the argument relies on several assumptions for which there is no clear evidence. Hence, the argument is weak, unconvincing and has several flaws.
First, the argument readily assumes that finding a way to create large amounts of copper from other chemicals inherently means that it’s a feasible process in practice. This statement is a stretch and not substantiated in any way. In fact, finding the process to perform the mentioned chemical reaction to create large quantities of copper from secondary chemical elements doesn’t guarantee that we will have adequate amount of the source chemical in nature to create the required amount of copper. Moreover, even if we have the adequate amount of it we may not be able to extract that amount or we may not have the technological tools to do so in a way that is financially reasonable. For example, let’s just consider a situation that we might find a way to create copper in large quantities from two other chemical elements such as iron and lead; are we going to have ample amount of both chemical elements in the nature to create the copper and how much would that cost? Lastly, is that reasonable to deprive other industries that crucially need these two elements to feed the copper industry? Furthermore, the issue of over-mining definitely will not be resolved if extracting the source chemical element itself heavily depends on mining. The argument could be much clearer if it explicitly stated that how finding new technics to create copper would solve the issue of over-mining.
Second, the argument claims that finding such a technic will eliminate the need for synthetic copper and thus the pollution it creates. Again, this is a very weak and unsupported claim as the argument doesn’t demonstrate any correlation between finding this new way and the decline of pollution. To illustrate we do not know that the new technic of mass creation of the copper will not create the same or more amount of environmental pollution than the production of synthetic copper. Maybe it’s even more pollutant and thus the new way wouldn’t really help with that issue. In other hands, the argument doesn’t mention that what are the intakes of those synthetic coppers, it’s possible that some industries that do not need high grades of copper still prefer to use the synthetic copper that is probably cheaper to produce and as a result the newly created copper will hardly replace the synthetic copper in the market. If the argument had provided evidence that the new copper production mechanism will eliminate the need for synthetic copper, then it would have been much more convincing.
Finally, the argument is not providing evidence that the regulation was created in the first place to only address the issue of over-mining and pollution. It’s very likely that the regulation was created to oversee a much wider variety of issues than only those two and while they are addressed there will be still need for the regulation to continue existence. So without convincing answers to these questions, one is left with the impression that the claim is more of a wishful thinking rather than substantive evidence.
In conclusion, the argument is flawed for the above-mentioned reasons and is therefore unconvincing. It could be considerably strengthened if the author clearly mentioned all the relevant facts. In order to assess the merits of a certain situation, it is essential to have full knowledge of all contributing factors without them the argument remains open to debate.
Moderators:
189 posts
